May 05, 2016

The New Day has called it a day. Posting on Facebook, editor Alison Phillips said the paper had failed to attract enough readers to make it viable.

"We have tried everything we could but sadly we just haven't reached the sales figures we needed to make it work financially," she wrote.

The fact Trinity Mirror’s gamble in launching a print newspaper in 2016 has't paid off won't come as a surprise to many people. But the plug being pulled so quickly, after just 50 editions, does come as a surprise. Any new business venture takes a while to find its feet but clearly an impatient Trinity Mirror hadn’t seen enough in the first two months to convince it The New Day was worth further investment during challenging times for the company.

Ultimately, the paper, which drew unfavourable comparisons to the i and Metro during its short existence and clearly operated on a tight budget, never managed to be as bold or remarkable as the decision to launch it. However, Phillips' note on Facebook explains her clear and admirable belief that it was better to try and fail than not to try at all.

"To have not given this a go was to mean we were content to stand on the pavement and watch the decline of British national newspapers hurtle past us. But we weren't."

Apr 08, 2016

For the past two days, the Daily Mail has been throwing a front page hissy-fit about lawyers preventing them from reporting some celebrity gossip.

Yes, these privacy injunctions can seem a bit of a silly anachronism which sometimes only serve to ensure greater publicity for the thing they were meant to hush up (not least because they Mail is doing a good job of telling people where they can find the details). But even more ridiculous is the Mail's petulant belief that it simply must be allowed to report what is clearly just a bit of celebrity gossip.

It's hard to imagine how this is in the public interest, however interesting the Mail thinks the public would find it.This isn't a principled stand in defence of a free press, they've just thrown a wobbler because someone's taken away their sex story. It's the journalistic equivalent of a child lying on the floor kicking and screaming because a parent confiscated their favourite toy.

The Sun meanwhile which feels similarly angry about the whole thing, has spoken to one third of the aforementioned threesome who feels his basic human right to talk to newspapers about somebody's private life has been infringed.

“We have been threatened with perjury, contempt of court and prison — all for telling the truth about this threesome."

“What about our human rights and freedom of expression?"

He doesn't explain why anybody else actually needs to know about this threesome.

The interpretations The Sun had to apply in order to make its research findings fit such a divisive headline were huge and glaring and IPSO has now notedThe Sun "conflated important distinctions... between "sympathy" for [people going to fight in Syria] and "support" for [jihadis]."

"Significantly misleading": The Sun's divisive headline drew a great deal of criticism back in 2015 and now the industry's regulator IPSO has finally caught up.

The Sun's misrepresentation of the research drew such criticism last November that Survation, the company which conducted the research, was quick to distance itself from the paper's conclusions.

"Taken in its entirety, the coverage presented as a fact that the poll showed that 1 in 5 British Muslims had sympathy for those who left to join ISIS and for ISIS itself. In fact, neither the question nor the answers which referred to "sympathy" made reference to IS. The newspaper had failed to take appropriate care in its presentation of the poll results, and as a result the coverage was significantly misleading, in breach of Clause 1."

However, what difference IPSO's ruling, against both The Sun and its sister paper The Times - announced around midnight on a bank holiday Good Friday - will really make is less clear. The story's damage was no doubt done last year and will have lingered ever since. Furthermore, The Sun's publication of IPSO's ruling inside the paper has none of the prominence of the front page story itself. IPSO claims its committee "gave careful consideration to requiring a reference to [the decision] to be published on the front page" but in the end decided The Sun could choose where it went, as long as it was no further back in the paper than page five. The Sun opted for a single column on page two.

This was undoubtedly the biggest test so far for IPSO, which is funded by the publications it regulates, and it would be difficult to make a case for it emerging with a great deal of credit. While it no doubt had to be seen to give careful consideration to a story which drew more than 3,000 complaints, it is hard to imagine how this ruling took four months, especially when the facts seemed so plain and the story was so controversial.

Mar 07, 2016

The Sunday Express has claimed the EU wants to take "control of our coasts". According to the paper:

"THE EU has drawn up plans to seize control of the British coastguard service as it creates a Europe-wide border force. Critics say it would result in the biggest transfer of sovereignty since the creation of the euro."

It calls it an "extraordinary measure" and quotes a spokesperson from the leave campaign who heaps on more hyperbole. But the article, towards the end, also quotes immigration minister James Brokenshire saying:

"Britain is not part of the Schengen area and, to be absolutely clear, we will not be part of an EU Border and Coast Guard."

So the EU won't be seizing our coast or our coast guard. It seems the headline was just a bit of anti-EU scaremongering. And this from a paper that last month branded scaremongering a "cheap tactic".

In February, a Sunday Express leader criticised what it claimed were "dire and entirely unfounded warnings" being issued by the pro-EU lobby. But obviously scaremongering from the anti-EU lobby is fair game, which is handy, because without it the Express and Sunday Express would probably struggle for content.

Feb 09, 2016

The Express tells us "Britain should leave the EU in order to save an NHS which is being overrun by migrants, according to a top cancer specialist".

We're also told Professor Angus Dalgleish, the 'top doctor' in question believes: "Our membership of the EU is putting an intolerable strain on our NHS".

And the Express makes sure to tell us his endorsement is "a boost for the out campaign".

The Daily Mail has also picked up the story and tells us "The NHS has been left 'on its knees' by uncontrolled migration from the EU", according to Dalgleish.

But what we're not told by either the Mail or the Express is that Angus Dalgleish was the Ukip candidate for Sutton and Cheam at the 2015 general election. You'd think that was a fairly relevant detail under the circumstances.

Feb 05, 2016

What do you do if the facts don't suit the story you want to push? Create some facts that do, apparently. Hence Friday's claim from the Daily Express that "92% want to quit the EU".

The Express claims this is a "shock poll result" but the only surprise is that the number isn't higher, given the poll in question was run by the vehemently pro-UKIP, anti-EU Express, on its own website, among its own readers. Did the eight per cent just tick the wrong box? If so, that doesn't bode well for their ability to vote in the referendum.

Jan 27, 2016

The Daily Mail today asked "Why DO so many celebs have knobbly knees?" No really, they actually did.

Why DO so many celebs have knobbly knees? This feature was possibly the result of a brainstorm entitled 'what body parts can we criticise today?'

The Mail concludes that knobbly knees are a result of female celebrities being "slaves to staying slim". But while the Mail does criticise a number of celebrities for being too "bony", it doesn't mention the catty headlines it would write about any celebrities whose limbs aren’t stick thin and pointy. Such as this one...

Not that celebrities should cover up their knobbly knees to save us all from such a sight, because that only makes matters worse. Look at Angelina Jolie. According to the Mail, she has "terrifyingly bony knees" when she appears in a dress but is accused of "covering up her painfully thin frame" if she wears trousers.

In fact, the Mail doesn't like celebrities covering up at all. Those who do run the risk of being called "glum", "frumpy", "downbeat" or "dowdy" if they don't have their knobbly knees on display at all times.

Which leaves putting on weight as the only workable solution to knobbly knees in the eyes of the Mail, and that brings us back to those catty headlines. The Mail can't lose.

But not so. The Daily Express earlier this month claimed an "Arctic SNOWBOMB" would "smash into Britain" ushering in "the coldest winter in 58 years" and "plunging the ENTIRE COUNTRY into winter lockdown".

The Express doubles-down on its predictions of a record-breaking 'big freeze'.

Not to be outdone, The Sun got in on the action. "Britain braces itself for coldest winter in 53 YEARS" reported the paper. Cue the Met Office reporting on Monday that we have now seen some of the warmest January temperatures on record.

In other weather-related nonsense, an ongoing spat between Channel 4 weather presenter Liam Dutton and a Daily Express writer reached a wider audience this week thanks to a post on Buzzfeed.

Dec 16, 2015

On 24 July this year, the Daily Express reported that there are now "311 LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN OUR SCHOOLS". What’s more, its front front page splash claimed "English is starting to die out" due to "mass immigration".

The paper went on to claim that a "Daily Express special investigation" had revealed "English-speaking pupils [are] becoming a minority in hundreds of classrooms". It reported in "some schools English is hardly heard at all".

Express-readers were up-in-arms. On 27 July the Express carried letters from outraged readers appalled that "our children are not taught the language of this country" and demanding to know "How much longer can this continue?". Another concluded that "eventually migrants will take over the economy then we will have no country to call our own".

However, the Express readers need not have worried because it turns out the newspaper's claims were almost entirely bogus.

Nearly five months later, at the request of the industry-appointed regulator IPSO, the Express has published a correction to the story which makes clear:

"English is the language of instruction in all maintained schools in England. The Daily Express accepted that the article may have suggested inaccurately that pupils who did not speak English as a first language could not speak English at all, and that English is not spoken in some classrooms".

Furthermore:

"The article's claims that English "is starting to die out" in schools and that English was "hardly heard at all" in some schools were completely unsupported. “These claims distorted the data cited by the newspaper, which did not include any information about the frequency with which English was spoken in schools, by either pupils or teachers."

Dec 08, 2015

"Donald Trump tonight faced calls to be banned from Britain over 'obnoxious, repellent and dangerous' claims that police in London 'fear for their lives' because some communities are so radicalised... In an unprecedented condemnation, Mr Trump came under fire from Scotland Yard, Downing Street and the leading contenders to be London Mayor after he claimed areas of the British capital are too dangerous for police, sparking calls for him to be banned from Britain."

For regular readers of the Mail however, Trump's widely-criticised claims about 'no go' zones in Britain will be nothing new. Another right-wing blow-hard with a penchant for controversy and ill-informed opinions was banging on about this a full seven-years before Trump:

"This country is littered with 'no-go' areas, not just physically, but culturally, spiritually, intellectually and academically, too. Our very liberties are being torched in the name of 'diversity'. The pernicious doctrine of multiculturalism has turned us into a society where people are frightened to speak their minds and justice has been flipped on its head... It is beyond dispute that there is a concerted campaign by Islamic extremists to force sharia law on to significant areas of Christian Britain. And there is no doubt that in predominantly Muslim areas, they are winning."Richard Littlejohn, 7 January 2008

All of which raises the question: If Trump gets banned can we also ban Littlejohn?

The Sun has apologised for a story it ran over the weekend and confirmed a "Sun investigator" who claimed to have crossed Europe by boat and train without a passport actually flew using a valid passport and subsequently lied about evading border controls and police.

An apology in The Sun says:

"In an article of 5th December, headlined "6 days to terror", we published the diary of Emile Ghessen… who said that he had smuggled himself from Turkey to Paris without using a passport… Mr Ghessen used his passport to enter and leave the Croatian city of Zagreb. This has been confirmed by the Croatian authorities. We also now believe that he made use of his passport at the other border points within Europe. His story did not, therefore, demonstrate that the borders of Europe had lax controls. We apologise for publishing misleading information."

The Sun took its story down over the weekend when Croatian authorities shared evidence that Ghessen, who was working as a freelancer for the paper, had entered the country using a valid passport and left via Zagreb airport bound for Paris.

Dec 07, 2015

The Sun has been accused of running a falsified account of how "A Sun investigator managed to smuggle himself 2,000 miles from Turkey to Paris in just six days without showing his passport". It's article was headlined: "6 DAYS TO TERROR" and claimed "WE REVEAL HOW EUROPE IS STILL WIDE OPEN TO DANGER".

The Sun claimed its investigator had travelled across Europe without showing a passport.

The paper claimed its investigator had moved freely across Europe, without checks, by paying people smugglers and hiding in a train toilet to evade Croatian border police - the suggestion being terrorists could do the same. However, the Croatian Interior Ministry has claimed it did register The Sun's investigator both as he entered and left Croatia. It has even published a scan of his valid passport which he apparently presented, according to website Total Croatia News.

The statement from the Croatian Interior Ministry also appears to contradict claims the investigator took "a series of trains up to Paris, dodging the guards on the way" as it says he exited Croatia at Zagreb airport, where he showed a valid passport.

Dec 03, 2015

With December upon us, it seems a good time to check in for the first time on this year’s Daily Express winter weather prediction (right).

Back in September, the Express claimed "Britain is facing the most savage winter in more than 50 years with months of heavy snowfall and bitter Arctic winds set to bring the country to a total standstill".

In particular, we were warned “October is likely to see a real chill…and… a much colder than average November”.

But no. A number of papers are paving the way to blame Corbyn for "caving in" and letting Labour MPs join the Conservatives in backing military action. Of course, if Corbyn had been able to prevent this he would have faced criticism for being "undemocratic" or a "terrorist sympathiser":

Nov 27, 2015

The Times has issued a correction after it followed sister paper The Sun in distorting the findings of a Survation poll on British Muslim attitudes towards fighters in Syria. The Times correction states:

"We reported the findings of a Survation poll of 1,000 British Muslims (News, Nov 24). Asked "How do you feel about young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria?", 14 per cent of respondents expressed "some sympathy" and 5 per cent "a lot of sympathy". The survey did not distinguish between those who go to fight for Islamic State and those who join other factions in Syria, and it did not ask about attitudes towards Isis itself. Our headline, "One in five British Muslims has sympathy for Isis", was misleading in failing to reflect this."

The Times could easily have saved itself this embarrassing retreat. Its story appeared a day later than The Sun's, by which time the story and the survey it was based on had already been widely discredited.

While it was certainly naïve of Survation not to see how such an ambiguously worded survey could be misused, it points out other media outlets have been able to report similar findings in a "largely uncontroversial", "balanced way" previously.

The company's statement adds: "Survation categorically objects to the use of any of our findings by any group, as has happened elsewhere on social networks, to incite racial or religious tensions."

It seems a long time since The Sun claimed it wanted to 'unite the UK' against the threat of Islamic terrorism (a claim met with some cynicism at the time). Now the paper is using that threat to whip up hostility towards British Muslims with a headline on Monday claiming one in five have "sympathy for jihadis". The headline is based on a piece of research carried out for The Sun by polling company Survation. The Sun claimed:

"Some 2.7 million Muslims live in Britain... If the poll reflected views across the country it would mean 500,000 have some support for jihadis."

Even if we ignore The Sun's rather fanciful premise that supporters of jihadis would just confess their allegiance to a stranger doing a survey over the phone (why didn't MI6 think of this?), there are a number of other issues with the headline and the paper's claims - most notably the fact they aren't true.

Survation asked respondents whether they have sympathy for "young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria?" and gave them a choice of answers - none of which mentioned "support for jihadis". However, the wording of the question and the use of "sympathy" were both open to significant interpretation which The Sun has certainly made full use of.

Press regulator IPSO, whose code of practice clearly states "the press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information" has reportedly already received hundreds of complaints about the article.